The fundamental training of the soldier of liberation is the life itself with the guerrilla band, and no one can be a chief who has not learned his difficult office in daily, armed exercises. Life with some companions will teach something about the handling of arms, about principles of orientation, about the manner of treating the civil population, about fighting, etc.; but the precious time of the guerrilla band is not to be consumed in methodical teaching. This begins only when there is a large liberated area and a large number of persons are needed for carrying out a combat function. Schools for recruits will then be established. These schools then perform a very important function. They are to form new soldiers from persons who have not passed through that excellent sieve of formidable privations, guerrilla combatant life. Other privations must be suffered at the outset to convert them into the truly chosen. After having passed through very difficult tests, they will arrive at incorporating themselves into the kingdom of an army that lives from day to day and leaves no traces of its path anywhere. They ought to perform physical exercises, mainly of two types: an agile gymnastic with training for war of a commando type, which demands agility in attack and withdrawal; and hikes that are hard and exhausting that will serve to toughen the recruit for this kind of existence. Above all, they should live in the open air. They should suffer all the inclemencies of the weather in close contact with nature, as the guerrilla band does.

The school for recruits must have workers who will take care of its supply needs. For this there should be cattle sheds, grain sheds, gardens, dairy, everything necessary, so that the school will not constitute a charge on the general budget of the guerrilla army. The students can serve in rotation in the work of sup- ply, either as punishment for bad conduct or simply as volunteers. This will depend upon characteristics proper to the zone where the school is being held. We believe that a good principle is to assign volunteers and to cover the remaining work quotas with those who have the poorest conduct and show the poorest disposition for learning warfare.

The school should have its small medical organization with a doctor or nurse, according to the p05- sibilities; this will provide the recruits with the best possible attention.

Shooting is the basic apprenticeship (See Picture 3-1). The guerrilla fighter should be carefully trained in this respect, so that he will try to expend the least possible amount of ammunition. He begins by practicing what is called dry shooting. It consists of seating the rifle firmly on any kind of wooden apparatus as shown in the picture. Without moving or firing the rifle the recruits direct the movement of a target until they think they have a hole at the center exactly in the line of sight. A mark is made on a backboard that remains stationary. If the mark for three tries gives a single point, this is excellent. When circumstances permit, practice with 22-calibre rifles will begin; this is very useful. If there is an excess of ammunition or a great need for preparing soldiers, opportunity will be given to fire with bullets.

One of the most important courses in the school for recruits, one which we hold to be basic and which can be given in any place in the world, is in meeting attack from the air Our school had been positively identified from the air and received attacks once or twice daily. The form in which the students resisted the impact of these continuous bombardments on their regular places of instruction virtually showed which of the young men had possibilities for becoming useful soldiers in battle.

The important thing, that which must never be neglected in a school for recruits, is indoctrination; this is important because the men arrive without a clear conception as to why they come, with nothing more than very diffuse concepts about liberty, freedom of the press, etc., without any clear foundation whatever. Therefore, the indoctrination should be carried out with maximum dedication and for the maximum amount of time possible. These courses should offer elementary notions about the history of the country, explained with a clear sense of the economic facts that motivate each of the historic acts; accounts of the national heroes and their manner of reacting when confronted with certain injustices; and afterwards an analysis of the national situation or of the situation in the zone. A short primer should be well studied by all members of the rebel army, so that it can serve as a skeleton of that which will come later.

There should also be a school for training teachers, where agreement can be reached on the choice of texts to be used, taking as a basis the contribution that each book can make to the educational process.

Reading should be encouraged at all times, with an effort to promote books that are worthwhile and that enlarge the recruit's facility to encounter the world of letters and great national problems. Further reading will follow as a vocation; the surrounding circumstances will awaken new desires for understanding in the soldiers. This result will be produced when, little by little, the recruits observe in their routine tasks the enormous advantages of men who have passed through the school over the remainder of the troop, their capacity for analyzing problems, their superior discipline, which is another of the fundamental things that the school should teach.

This discipline should be internal, not mechanical but justified by reasons and designed to produce formidable benefits in moments of combat.